Merle Haggard – Enduring Spirit

Merle Haggard plays a pivotal role in the evolving definition of country music.

Merle Haggard grew up in the classic American situation. Coming from a lower class family, Merle had to learn to depend on his inner resilience to reach his American Dream. Having some sporadic trouble with the law at an early age, and having spent some time in the San Quentin jail, Merle Haggard had a lot of difficulties making it at first. At one point in his career, he was actually digging ditches to make money for his family. Playing guitar with small music groups finally got him noticed by the right people and his career really began to take off after he signed a record contract with Capitol Records in 1965. His songs started climbing to the top ten list by the late sixties.

Merle continues his feverish pace of song writing throughout his career, even until today. His songs have breached new ground several times through his career, a fact that has led many budding country musicians to take a page from Merle Haggard’s song book.